DCMark

thanks everyone. Hopefully this will not be my last foray into pastry.

Hello all you pastry masters. I am almost afraid to come in here but am confident you will help a newbie out who is facing a very stressful situation. To make a long story short, I am responsible for making an apple tart for Thanksgiving. It was going to be made by my French wife, but for reasons I will not go into here ( ) I will be making it. Note: I am a decent cook but have never made pastry before. Small city kitchen, no mixer or food processor. I do have a rolling pin and a tart pan! I have persued some recepies on Epicurious and some suggest using frozen puff pastry. Will this work out ok? Is tart crust 'puff pastry'? Any basic recipies of apple tart would be most welcome. Thank you, Mark

Where do the French but their wine if not from the producer? I am still searching for a decent wine shop in the Grenoble area.

Thank you!!! ← My first day on the job as a prep cook at a nothing beach restaurant I got my ass kicked, stuffed in a trash can and locked in the walk in. If the chef slapped my hand I would have been touched! ← doesn't make it right, though... ← Doesn't make it wrong either. If you join the Marines you expect to be treated in a certain way. Its life. We legislate all non-conformity out of our little worlds while across the border people are in slavery. Perspective.

Thank you!!! ← My first day on the job as a prep cook at a nothing beach restaurant I got my ass kicked, stuffed in a trash can and locked in the walk in. If the chef slapped my hand I would have been touched!

Is this post a very early April Fool's joke? Tell me it is, the amount of windage flowing here is amazing. It makes all the snide comments about snobby 'foodies' ring true and makes EG look SAD. Some of you have this fantasy about what goes on in a kitchen (not during the times you get the VIP tour). I am certain Keller's places are a cut above, but the drugs, violence, verbal abuse, etc that exist in restaurants would blow most of your PC minds. Let it be, its the last bastion of creativity we have left.

I would take a well-stocked Champion over just about every store in most major US cities! It may not reach the level of the French farmers market but the choices of meats and cheeses are so much better than Whole Food here in DC. The world is becoming a smaller place and more homogenized. As visitors, we tend to notice the differences more than the similarities, but France in changing and not always for the better. More than a few years ago, my wife and I looked at a rental property on the edge of a tiny village in Gascony. There was much to be said for the place. In addition to the nice house, there were nice grounds and free eggs from the landlord's chickens. The landlord herself was a charming Englishwoman who'd make an excellent neighbor. All that was missing was a local cafe bar where I could practice my French in morning over a coffee and again in the afternoon with an aperitif. Indeed, we saw the cafe premises, but were told it had closed recently along with the only food shop in town. Everyone gets in their cars and shops at the supermarket in the new shopping center not far away. Another story I've told is about being in Brittany and getting picked up by a French chef I know who lives and works in NY. He was taking us to his mother's house for dinner. On the way we stopped to get a few last things for dinner. If you can imagine the pleasure of anticipating shopping in a French market with a pro, you can empathize with my disappointment when we pulled into the parking lot at Champion, a hypermarché in the outskirts of Lorient. We did, on another occasion, shop in the weekly open market in Hennebont, a smaller town, where we bought the most incredible butter I've ever tasted and a roasted pork belly ready to eat. All that you describe is there, but it's no longer how the French necessarily shop. In some places, those neighborhood shops are very dependent on expatriate trade with vacation homes in the area, which raises the issue again of how the French eat and how they used to eat. Many visitors to France are looking to live the life they think the French led, or at least that part of it they find appealing. ←

MarkK, you stole my name. I did find your inital post funny, but I guess like all jokes, once over-analyzed they lose their humor? You probably hit a raw nerve with us francophiles and francos (!)...that France is often (in the US) the subject of horribly mean jokes and stereotypes. France is one of the last 'groups' that can be mocked and insulted openly throughout American society, from the water-cooler to CNN. Its remarkable the comments that are made, which if one substitued Mexican, Japanese or Canadian for French, would get the commentator fired, sued or beat up! That is why your comment probably got so many questions. Let me add my kudos to the admins of the France boards for keeping that bigotry out of EG.

This post is unbelievable. I came to EG today after being out of the country praying that this post would not exist...but sadly it does. Mostly felons? Where does that come from? Looks like POOR BLACK families to me. These people are not disposable. Who cares about the French Quarter or some restaurant you visited on vacation? NOLA is gone people, gone. Its not coming back except for some plastic Disney Land version. For anyone to consider a white tablecloth restaurant, for even one minute, while AMERICAN children die from lack of water, is sad and sick. We reap what we sow.

I enjoyed the pig killing scene quite a bit. As someone who advocates the meat 'lifestyle' I wonder if that really was the first mammal TB has killed? If so, its high time he had that experience, considering the 1000s++ he has served as dinner! I found his faux-guilt amusing too.

I remember having a great meal at Maxim's there in the late 1980s. I suppose that is long gone?

Bourdain: Let the fact that some blowhards may not approve of your show prove its worthiness. Or those who think they are French...... The scene post-Absinthe sucked, but remember, that was probably filmed a week later and was certainly edited months later. The fact that you were able to genuinely interact with seemingly true Parisians was wonderful. Judge this show based on its worthiness as a television program, not on its relation to experiences with one's Parisian insiders. Its televison, not real life.

One of them is used for Genepi?

I think its sort of a joke but you do see 'Savoie Libre' graffiti from time to time so there is still some sentiment for an independent Savoie and Haut-Savoie.

Is France different from its European neighbors in this regard? Do Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Italy, etc have a history of embracing ethnic food? I am happy to stand corrected but don't believe so. And I do not mean an Italian restaurant in Vienna as an example.

No comment on your intentions but that is a horrible book. The sub-title is "Why we love France, But not the French". As someone who loves the French, and a particular french person especially, the offensive title is only ecsliped by the banal writing. Don't buy this book! What is wrong with our Vietnamese and Laotian restaurants, the best outside of Southeast Asia, and our North African restaurants? Not to mention Lebanese food? Do they count for nothing? What other ethnic restaurants should we have in order to be labeled "acceptable" in the field of non-French restaurants? Well, things have changed a bit, in France, since the Middle Ages (I'm saying "the Middle Ages" because we have written proof that we already knew about couscous in the 16th century). ← I was just remarking on the reason this topic was started, not making an accusation...I do apologize profusely if you belive that I was insulting the French! In terms of the latter part of the quote, I was refering to observations made in a book called "Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" written in 2002 by 2 serious journalists about France TODAY. ←

No problem. I just have had some very good Italian there. The relationship between Grenoble and the Italians is an interesting one. They occupied the area in the early years of WWII. They were quite lax in administration and enforcement. This, more than the proximity to the resistance redout in the Vercours, made Grenoble a center of the resistance in France. At some point, (prior to Italian surrender to the Allies), the Germans moved in to replace the Italians and things got much worse. At this point my grandfather in-law was captured making bombs and sent to Camp Dora near Buchenwald. I would say overall I used to be dissapointed with the quality of restaurants in Grenoble. At least on the high end there seems to be very little. However, as I spend more time there, we find more and more great small/family type places. In the end, thats more important to me anyway, as most of my restaurant budget goes to such places. My French in-laws tell me that we Americans are too obsessed with the guide rouge anyway. Grenoble has some great North African places. If you return try La Belle Etoile on Rue Lionne right across the river from the Musee de Grenoble. Excellent couscous and merguez. I am planning to move to that area in about 12 months so we will see how lucky I am! Love to see more pictures.

GB was also featured in at least one episode of The Wire. McNulty was humiliated by his lobbyist girlfriend there. All inside shots but it was portrayed as a DC hotspot. Since this episode was filmed in 2002, I would say they do have a good publicist.

Adam, when you were at Massif de la Chartreuse you were probably 20 miles from where I got married. Can you tell me the name of the restaurant in Grenoble? I am always looking for more options there. There actually is great pizza in Grenoble, probably the best in France. Grenoble has many Italians and the highest # of La Cosa Nostra in France.

Adam, wonderful report from God's country!

Excuse my complete lack of proof reading. I meant NOT a non-stick pan, a normal calphalon. Sorry! The high-temperature searing method? I wouldn't recommend it. At these temperatures you're closing in on the temperature at which PTFE starts to break down, and you could ruin the pan pretty easily. You really don't need a non-stick pan for this technique, anyway. ←

Will this method work ok with a NORMAL calphalon pan? Thanks Edit made after Dave's kind response.

I see no one gave you any ideas.....but I think we would still all love to hear a trip report? How was it?

I forget the word micro. Have you seen Mondovino? What consultants? Micro-oxygenation was developed by Patrick Ducournau, a 100% red-blooded French winegrower in faraway, isolated Madiran, and the goal was certainly not to get higher Parker scores (Robert Parker has never tasted any Ducournau wines), but to soften the harsh tannins of the tannat grape. ←

Its good, I agree. But so many people have no idea the corporate parent!